ABSTRACT
Institutions of Foresight (IOFs) are purpose-built organizations that focus on one or another aspect of futures work. Some remain viable over decades, while others disappear. The key point is that both successes and failures provide useful pointers for creating and sustaining second-generation IOFs. So this chapter draws on the experience of the Australian Commission for the Future (CFF). It considers the twelve years of its existence, attempts to summarize its achievements, and then suggests some lessons, or broad design principles, that may be useful to other such initiatives around the world. The Commission was launched in a blaze of publicity in early 1986. It existed in one form or another for twelve years, had four directors, spent in excess of AUD$8 million, was privatized and vanished from public view during 1996. After many ups and downs, after a number of false dawns and unsuccessful attempts at revival, the last chairman of the board ran out of inspiration in June 1998 and the CFF closed its doors for the last time.
